convoying to the river an enthusiastic freshman who had just joined his college boat club. At every step I was asked whether we were yet approaching the noble stream. I answered evasively, and with an air of mystery which befits a third-year man in the presence of freshmen. At length we turned on to the common, which is bounded by the Cam; on the further bank stand the boat-houses. There were crowds of men busy in the yards, there were coaches riding on the nearer bank, but of the river itself there was no indication. We were still about two hundred yards away when a Lady Margaret Eight passed, the heads of the crew in their scarlet caps being just visible above the river-bank as they swung backwards and forwards in their boat. I felt my freshman's grip tightening on my arm. Suddenly he stood stock still and rubbed his eyes. "Good heavens!" he said in an awestruck voice, "what on earth are those little red animals I see running up and down there? Funniest thing I ever saw." I reassured him, and in a few moments more we arrived at the Cam, crossed it in a "grind," and solved the puzzle. Distance, therefore, can scarcely be said to lend enchantment to the view, since at
anything over one hundred yards it withdraws the Cam altogether from our sight. It is not easy, indeed, to see where the attractions of the Cam come in. It has been called with perfect justice a ditch, a canal, and a sewer, but not even the wildest enthusiasm would have supposed it to be a running stream, or ventured at first sight to call it a river. Yet this slow and muddy thread of water has been for more than seventy years the scene of excitements and triumphs and glories without end. Upon its shallow stream future judges and bishops and Parliament-men—not to speak of the great host of minor celebrities and the vaster army of future obscurities—have sought exercise and relaxation; to its unsightly banks their memory still fondly turns wherever their lot may chance to be cast, and still some thousand of the flower of our youth find health and strength in driving the labouring Eights and Fours along its narrow reaches and round its winding corners. It may well excite the wonder of the uninitiated that, with so many natural disadvantages to contend against, the oarsmen of Cambridge should have been able during all these years to maintain so high a standard of oarsmanship. Time
after time since the year when First Trinity secured the first race for the Grand Challenge have her college crews carried off the chief prizes at Henley against all competitors, until, in 1887, Trinity Hall swept the board by actually winning five out of the eight Henley races, other Cambridge men accounting for the remaining three. The record of Cambridge rowing is thus a very proud one; but those who know the Cambridge oarsman and his river will find no difficulty in accounting for it. The very disadvantages of the Cam all tend to imbue the man who rows upon it with a stern sense of duty, with the feeling that it is business and not pleasure, hard work and not a picnic, that summon him every day of the term to the boat-houses and urge him on his way to Baitsbite. We are forced to do without the natural charms that make the Isis beautiful. We console ourselves by a strict devotion to the labour of the oar.
The man who first rowed upon the Cam was in all probability a lineal descendant of the daring spirit who first tasted an oyster. His name and fame have not been preserved, but I am entitled to assume that he flourished some time before 1826. In that year the records of
Cambridge boat clubs begin. There is in the possession of the First Trinity Boat Club an old book, at one end of which are to be found the "Laws of the Monarch Boat Club," with a list of members from 1826 to 1828, whilst at the other end are inscribed lists of members of the Trinity Boat Club, minutes of its meetings, and brief descriptions of the races in which it was engaged from the year 1829 to 1834. The Monarch Boat Club was by its laws limited to members of Trinity, and, I take it, that in 1828 the club had become sufficiently important to change its name definitely to that of Trinity Boat Club. At any rate, it must always have been considered the Trinity Club; for in the earliest chart of the Cambridge boat races—that, namely, of 1827—in the captains' room of the First Trinity Boat-house, "Trinity" stands head of the river, and no mention is made of a Monarch Club. These ancient laws form a somewhat Draconian code. They are twenty-five in number, and eight of them deal with fines or penalties to be inflicted upon a member who may "absent himself from his appointed crew and not provide a substitute for his oar," or who may "not arrive at the boat-house within a quarter
of an hour of the appointed time." There were fines ("by no means to be remitted, except in the case of any member having an ægrotat, exeat, or absit, or having been prevented from attending by some laws of the college or University") for not appearing in the proper uniform, for "giving orders or speaking on a racing day, or on any other day, after silence has been called" (exception being made in favour of the captain and steerer), and for neglecting to give notice of an intended absence. To the twelfth law a clause was subsequently added enacting "that the treasurer be chastised twice a week for not keeping his books in proper order."
From the minutes of the Trinity Boat Club I extract the following letter, dated Stangate, December, 1828, which shows that even at that early date the first and third persons carried on a civil war in the boat-builder's vocabulary:—
"Rawlinson & Lyon's compliments to Mr. Greene wish to know if there is to be any alteration in the length of the set of oars they have to send down have been expecting to hear from the Club, therefore have not given orders for the
oars to be finished should feel obliged by a line from you with the necessary instructions and be kind enough to inform us of the success which we trust you have met with in the New Boat.
we remain Sir
Your obt Servts
Rawlinson & Lyon."